The core rules of P:E, Pen & Paper style

[Lephys]

What I have mixed feelings about

• Attack resolution, I think that the chance to miss is too low. For me when you get hit with a Sword it IS a graze, else you would be dead. 
• The armor scalling and damage system, from what we have seen the range will be really wide. Why ? I mean why would a basic leather armor be a waste at higher level ? 

You do know that the chance to miss isn't fixed, right? In other words, if you have relatively low accuracy, and you're fighting something with low defense (whichever of those 4 you listed, depending on the attack type), then you're pretty much "evenly matched." So you get the 5%-45%-45%-5% (miss-graze-hit-crit) scale. However, essentially for every point of difference between your attack accuracy and your opponent's defense, the scale shifts. Is your foe's defense 3 higher than your attack? Then you might have 15%-45%-40%-0% (no chance to crit). Or, if his defense is 3 points lower than your attack, the reverse would occur; 0%-40%-45%-15% chance to crit.

 

Now, I don't know the exact math that will be used. The graze and hit ranges could stretch at a different rate from the miss and crit ranges (so that if you have a really high attack accuracy, you're getting something like 0%-10%-70%-20%, instead of 0%-5%-45%-50%). *Shrug*. I'm not sure on the specifics.

 

But, I just wanted to make sure you knew about the sliding scale, since the base 5% miss chance I could see looking to be too low, if I didn't think it changed significantly in different situations.

Edited August 2, 2013 by Lephys

[rjshae]

The best thing the designs have going for it IMO is the amount of options: core character building has the traditional stuff along with Culture and Ethnicity among other things, and you get to pick your start gear unlike the IE games (unless you count BG1 haha).

Then there are also lots of different weapons and armor and the system promotes the use of all of them (or well, generally, stuff may need to be tweaked to be better/worse later on).

 

Yes, to me player choice is a key essence of what turns a game into a RPG. The fewer choices there are, the less like a RPG it becomes. A good design provides a range of choices in an integrated package that doesn't overwhelm the player and detract from the fun. The nice thing about a computer interface is that it can deliver a complexity of detail in a user friendly interface. Translating that back into a PnP form may... require some compromises, including simplification.

 

But I blather on...

[J. Trudel]

 

What I have mixed feelings about

• Attack resolution, I think that the chance to miss is too low. For me when you get hit with a Sword it IS a graze, else you would be dead. 
• The armor scalling and damage system, from what we have seen the range will be really wide. Why ? I mean why would a basic leather armor be a waste at higher level ? 

You do know that the chance to miss isn't fixed, right? In other words, if you have relatively low accuracy, and you're fighting something with low defense (whichever of those 4 you listed, depending on the attack type), then you're pretty much "evenly matched." So you get the 5%-45%-45%-5% (miss-graze-hit-crit) scale. However, essentially for every point of difference between your attack accuracy and your opponent's defense, the scale shifts. Is your foe's defense 3 higher than your attack? Then you might have 15%-45%-40%-0% (no chance to crit). Or, if his defense is 3 points lower than your attack, the reverse would occur; 0%-40%-45%-15% chance to crit.

 

Now, I don't know the exact math that will be used. The graze and hit ranges could stretch at a different rate from the miss and crit ranges (so that if you have a really high attack accuracy, you're getting something like 0%-10%-70%-20%, instead of 0%-5%-45%-50%). *Shrug*. I'm not sure on the specifics.

 

But, I just wanted to make sure you knew about the sliding scale, since the base 5% miss chance I could see looking to be too low, if I didn't think it changed significantly in different situations.

 

 

Yeah I already knew about the sliding effect. I do hope the maths are changed a bit, or I might get my hands dirty with a mod what I would like would be something more like this :

 

Equal Defense and Attack : 40 % Miss, 15 % Graze, 40 % Hit, 5 % Critical

Slinding up to : 75 % Miss,  15 % Graze, 5 % Hit, 5 % Critical

or the opposite : 25 % Miss, 15 % Graze, 50 % Hit, 10 % Critical

 

 

As you can see with my math, only the miss and hit are changing. It gives the effect that if you fight someone with a high defense you'll do more graze than hits. This reflect better the reality of a fight IMHO. Also, the 75 % maximal miss chance would still give low level criters a meaning if they are somewhat in massive numbers.

[Lephys]

Ehh... that just seems like an awfully high miss chance, to me. For just "am I or am I not hitting and damaging this entity." Unless something has particularly high evasion, you're generally not ever going to actually "miss" it. And, I'm not sure if parries/blocks/active-dodges are being covered by this base system or if they're in addition to it. You know... "*roll*... this will be a hit, except *PARRIED*!" Because, if you were literally missing the person anyway, why would they parry? You'd think a skilled fighter would only attempt to actively deflect/dodge the attacks that were threatening to damage them.

 

Of course, these aren't completely separate things, obviously. You're not just standing there, swinging away at each other, and then SOMETIMES dodging and moving and deflecting. So, again, it comes down to what the numbers are actually representing.

 

I don't have an issue with the current system, though, because you don't really know what the average defense of opponents is going to be. Or, rather, it ALLOWS for plenty of missing, if you don't have exceptionally high Precision (which is kind of the point of chances/percentages). If you have statistically average Precision, there will still be plenty of enemies with higher defense relative to your attack, and there will be plenty of enemies with lower defense.

 

Plus, the whole Graze thing already covers what amounts to a partial miss. It's not a clean hit like intended, but it's still technically a hit. This will sometimes deal almost no damage, and will sometimes deal still-decent damage. So, I think the range is covered, as far as the successfully-damage-to-unsuccessfully-damage ratio goes.

 

What gets REALLY lame in my current playthrough of BG is an entire party of people, all missing a single enemy about 5 rounds in a row (some with multiple attacks per round), THEN finally hitting it. Honestly, even the exact same amount of damage, spread out more over those 5 rounds, would be oodles better.

 

The only way I'd accept the typical 20-40% miss chances is if there were flanking bonuses and all other manner of adjustments, etc. Because, if that chance IS including DEX and armor deflection and all that jazz (which, I'm pretty sure it is, via AC), then that can't apply in total to MULTIPLE opponents attacking simultaneously. That math just doesn't come anywhere close to matching "reality" (what it's trying to represent, even in fictitious reality).

[J. Trudel]

Ehh... that just seems like an awfully high miss chance, to me. For just "am I or am I not hitting and damaging this entity." Unless something has particularly high evasion, you're generally not ever going to actually "miss" it. And, I'm not sure if parries/blocks/active-dodges are being covered by this base system or if they're in addition to it. You know... "*roll*... this will be a hit, except *PARRIED*!" Because, if you were literally missing the person anyway, why would they parry? You'd think a skilled fighter would only attempt to actively deflect/dodge the attacks that were threatening to damage them.

 

Of course, these aren't completely separate things, obviously. You're not just standing there, swinging away at each other, and then SOMETIMES dodging and moving and deflecting. So, again, it comes down to what the numbers are actually representing.

 

I don't have an issue with the current system, though, because you don't really know what the average defense of opponents is going to be. Or, rather, it ALLOWS for plenty of missing, if you don't have exceptionally high Precision (which is kind of the point of chances/percentages). If you have statistically average Precision, there will still be plenty of enemies with higher defense relative to your attack, and there will be plenty of enemies with lower defense.

 

Plus, the whole Graze thing already covers what amounts to a partial miss. It's not a clean hit like intended, but it's still technically a hit. This will sometimes deal almost no damage, and will sometimes deal still-decent damage. So, I think the range is covered, as far as the successfully-damage-to-unsuccessfully-damage ratio goes.

 

What gets REALLY lame in my current playthrough of BG is an entire party of people, all missing a single enemy about 5 rounds in a row (some with multiple attacks per round), THEN finally hitting it. Honestly, even the exact same amount of damage, spread out more over those 5 rounds, would be oodles better.

 

The only way I'd accept the typical 20-40% miss chances is if there were flanking bonuses and all other manner of adjustments, etc. Because, if that chance IS including DEX and armor deflection and all that jazz (which, I'm pretty sure it is, via AC), then that can't apply in total to MULTIPLE opponents attacking simultaneously. That math just doesn't come anywhere close to matching "reality" (what it's trying to represent, even in fictitious reality).

 

In a fight you are always trying to parry, evade and deflect attacks. This is why I wouldn't want a separate system for parrying, it's silly to think that your character doesn't want to evade all attacks. I do for this reason prefer I higher miss chance, it's way more realistic. I think that one out of 2 attacks should miss, a graze should take out maybe around 1/15th of your HP while a hit would take something around 1/10th and a critical around 1/5th. 

 

What that would means in terms of gameplay, is that an encounter between two characters of the same skill level (ajusted by armors vs dmg of course) would take between 15 to 20 attacks on each side to resolve. If an attack is around 1,2 seconds (not a bad lenght for an attack animation) a fight should last somewhere near 20 seconds. 

 

It's personal preferences I know, but a hit ratio of 95 % (even when 45 % of them are graze) means your defense is very bad. If you apply the same maths to another skill, lets say sneaking. Sneak skill = Awarness. You get theses chances :

 

5 % - Alert

45 % - Investigation

45 % - Unaware

5 % - Unaware

 

To me, it seems like a very low chance of alerting someone who his supossed to be as good at detecting as you are sneaking.

[Lephys]

^ Sneaking is a completely different animal, though. Also, it's only the base numbers that even remotely seem low. With sneaking, for example, once an enemy was investigating (which you almost have a 50% chance of), the evasion numbers (unaware ranges) would shrink drastically, and the alertness chance would increase drastically.

 

Anywho, different animal, and that's really hard to even think about with the same ranges, heh. But, well, while I see the value/idea behind your "grazes do 1/15th" thing, the system/scale is going for a much broader representation than that, so it would be inconsistent. In the midst of the mathematical abstraction of all things combat, occasional hits that do 1/15th damage (already from a potential range of damage) would be blatantly inconsequential to the outcome of any combat encounter, ever.

 

But, yes, the system isn't trying to directly represent every single action, in sequence, that would occur in combat, all the way through. It's more generalized than that. Sure, that level of representation would be AMAZING. But, shy of actually implementing a system that would do all that with extreme accuracy, the best we can have is a broader representation.

 

You're right about the evading/parrying bit. Your defense is going to be working all the time, no matter what. However, you're not equally effective at defending against an attack at all times. The most blatant example of this is "you're lying on your back," and how that tends to negate almost any defensive rating you have in a lot of games (I think in BG, something that's rooted and/or knocked down provides a guaranteed hit every time?). But, factors change, and the effectiveness of your defense fluctuates with each shift as time passes. Sometimes you have better footing, sometimes you're in a better position relative to the angle/style of the next incoming strike, etc. So, I was just thinking that, in an abstract fashion, that fluctuation could be represented almost as a % chance to receive a defense bonus. So that it's not just bland "this person might hit you, with all things considered into one single lump percentage."

 

*shrug*. I know you COULD put it all into one number, but it's just nice to know when your success was attributed to these fluctuations, and when it wasn't. With a single percentage, you're wondering "how much of that miss was his fault, and how much of that was my doing, as opposed to any other miss?" Sure, it can show "*dodge*" accompanied by an animation of your character dodging, but did your character's specific dodge-ability actually cause this, or did the system just go "Well, this guy has this much chance to miss on his own, or get a bad strike, and you have this much chance to dodge, or your armor has this much chance to deflect the attack, so let's just pool all those things together, spin the Wheel of Defense, and pick one at random to say happened here"?

 

A better example of this (because I don't think I'm making much sense) is critical miss. I know they're not in P:E, but bear with me. A character could attack a STATIONARY object and still critical miss, as it simply represents a very terrible swing (do to whatever factors). However, if two people were fighting, and some kind of defensive move resulted in a disarm, that would be different. You didn't drop your sword... I CAUSED its removal from your hand, despite your nice swing.

 

So, in that case, I'd rather not go through the game SIMPLY seeing weapons fall out of hands, and not knowing what caused it. I'd have no basis for what effects were how prominent. "Are these enemies just dropping their weapons a lot, or is my character's specific use of his shield causing these disarms?"

 

Again, it's not necessary, I know. But, it's just nice when there's some separation of the individual effects.

 

I'm not sure how it'll work in P:E, though. I mean, there are 4 different types of defense that we know of, and they each work against a different type of attack (Deflection and Reflexes don't both work against melee attacks, I don't think). So, it may just be that your Agility or Dexterity or whatever simply factors into the to-hit percentage, passively. *shrug*

[jamoecw]

Most of my fear lies in how the rules make the game world credible. I remember being able to do Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 without any magical equipment. Also whats the point of having 3000 hp when no one do 1 damage anyway? Sometime concepts are good but the execution is strange. What I mean is not having rules that are exactly like pnp, but rules that do feel like PnP. 

 

Just an example :

 

In Dragon Age : Origins, you have a system which I think is not that bad on the first look. But after a while you begin to wonder how having 89 in an attribute relate to the world around. It does not ''tell'' anything it's just a number used for calculations. 

 

Fallout was very PnP in my opinion even if it was never an actual PnP game. This is an example IMHO done right. Also very easy to convert to PnP. I ran a few game with the rules back in the days.

fallout was going to be based on the twilight system from what i've heard, but they messed up and decided to just go with it instead of changing it.  fallout is very similar to twilight so it is a believable tale.

[J. Trudel]

^ Sneaking is a completely different animal, though. Also, it's only the base numbers that even remotely seem low. With sneaking, for example, once an enemy was investigating (which you almost have a 50% chance of), the evasion numbers (unaware ranges) would shrink drastically, and the alertness chance would increase drastically.

 

Anywho, different animal, and that's really hard to even think about with the same ranges, heh. But, well, while I see the value/idea behind your "grazes do 1/15th" thing, the system/scale is going for a much broader representation than that, so it would be inconsistent. In the midst of the mathematical abstraction of all things combat, occasional hits that do 1/15th damage (already from a potential range of damage) would be blatantly inconsequential to the outcome of any combat encounter, ever.

 

But, yes, the system isn't trying to directly represent every single action, in sequence, that would occur in combat, all the way through. It's more generalized than that. Sure, that level of representation would be AMAZING. But, shy of actually implementing a system that would do all that with extreme accuracy, the best we can have is a broader representation.

 

You're right about the evading/parrying bit. Your defense is going to be working all the time, no matter what. However, you're not equally effective at defending against an attack at all times. The most blatant example of this is "you're lying on your back," and how that tends to negate almost any defensive rating you have in a lot of games (I think in BG, something that's rooted and/or knocked down provides a guaranteed hit every time?). But, factors change, and the effectiveness of your defense fluctuates with each shift as time passes. Sometimes you have better footing, sometimes you're in a better position relative to the angle/style of the next incoming strike, etc. So, I was just thinking that, in an abstract fashion, that fluctuation could be represented almost as a % chance to receive a defense bonus. So that it's not just bland "this person might hit you, with all things considered into one single lump percentage."

 

*shrug*. I know you COULD put it all into one number, but it's just nice to know when your success was attributed to these fluctuations, and when it wasn't. With a single percentage, you're wondering "how much of that miss was his fault, and how much of that was my doing, as opposed to any other miss?" Sure, it can show "*dodge*" accompanied by an animation of your character dodging, but did your character's specific dodge-ability actually cause this, or did the system just go "Well, this guy has this much chance to miss on his own, or get a bad strike, and you have this much chance to dodge, or your armor has this much chance to deflect the attack, so let's just pool all those things together, spin the Wheel of Defense, and pick one at random to say happened here"?

 

A better example of this (because I don't think I'm making much sense) is critical miss. I know they're not in P:E, but bear with me. A character could attack a STATIONARY object and still critical miss, as it simply represents a very terrible swing (do to whatever factors). However, if two people were fighting, and some kind of defensive move resulted in a disarm, that would be different. You didn't drop your sword... I CAUSED its removal from your hand, despite your nice swing.

 

So, in that case, I'd rather not go through the game SIMPLY seeing weapons fall out of hands, and not knowing what caused it. I'd have no basis for what effects were how prominent. "Are these enemies just dropping their weapons a lot, or is my character's specific use of his shield causing these disarms?"

 

Again, it's not necessary, I know. But, it's just nice when there's some separation of the individual effects.

 

I'm not sure how it'll work in P:E, though. I mean, there are 4 different types of defense that we know of, and they each work against a different type of attack (Deflection and Reflexes don't both work against melee attacks, I don't think). So, it may just be that your Agility or Dexterity or whatever simply factors into the to-hit percentage, passively. *shrug*

 

It depends, I don't think sneaking should be so different. Sneaking is an action, as much as an attack is an action. How the chances of success are handled is what makes this action different. Sneaking is affected by distance, gear, sight etc. While attacking is affected by ground, position, defnse etc. 

 

On that 1/15th, 1/10th and 1/5th on the damge thing,  I gave this example for characters of a  similar level of skill and of course similar weapon vs armor values. If for exemple your char have a light armor and your opponent have a heavy weapon, you would receive more damage (but on the other hand you might as well be a bit better a dodging).  

 

Also 1/15th of damage is not irrevelent at all. Think of this situation, you face 6 critters that have a very hard time to hit you, but they keep beign able to hit you with grazes hit. Since your armor is better than their weapons they only do about 1/20th damage per graze.On the other hand you are able to kill 1 of them per round.  Let's see how it goes :

 

On the first round 5 of them hit (graze) you while you kill one. Your life is (15/20), next round you kill another and get hit 4 times (life 11/20). Next round you kill another but one does a critical for 3 points and you get grazed by 2 other (life 6/20th). Another round and you get hit two times while dispatching another critter (life 4/20th). You behead another critter while geting hit by a normal hit that does 2 points (life 2/20) The last critter lose moral and flee, you are somewhat happy because a lucky shot just before your attack would have meant your end. 

 

It's not that difficult to add or remove situational modifier in combat. For example, if you are cornered, you lose half your dodge bonus, if you are more agressive, you may be able to hit more frequently, at the cost of receiving more damage if you get hit. The possibilities are endless, as long as you make the game engine capable of seeying theses situations. Just a quick example, in Shadowrun returns, when you are close to an object, it provide cover in that direction so you are harder to hit. This cover does not apply if your opponent get a clean sight. A similar system could be use in close quarters. When you are close to an object you may get penalities on your dodge bonus if your opponent attack you from the opposite side because you don't have the possibility to back off. 

 

In the log, it would be fun to see the calc like this : its an exampe so I put random numbers. 

 

Char1 : attack Enemy1 (Attack 7 + Weapon 2 + situation 0) - (Deflect 8 + Dodge 2 + Situation 1) = Ratio -2 Roll 39% : Graze 8 Dmg

[Lephys]

Also 1/15th of damage is not irrevelent at all. Think of this situation, you face 6 critters that have a very hard time to hit you, but they keep beign able to hit you with grazes hit. Since your armor is better than their weapons they only do about 1/20th damage per graze.On the other hand you are able to kill 1 of them per round.  Let's see how it goes :

 

On the first round 5 of them hit (graze) you while you kill one. Your life is (15/20), next round you kill another and get hit 4 times (life 11/20). Next round you kill another but one does a critical for 3 points and you get grazed by 2 other (life 6/20th). Another round and you get hit two times while dispatching another critter (life 4/20th). You behead another critter while geting hit by a normal hit that does 2 points (life 2/20) The last critter lose moral and flee, you are somewhat happy because a lucky shot just before your attack would have meant your end.

I may be misunderstanding here, but, for what it's worth, I was referring to the significance of a fraction of damage such as 1/15th in the context of the P:E system as a graze hit. Meaning that, in your above example, that one that does a critical hit does 20/20ths of damage (it already killed you, with a normal hit instead of a graze) multiplied by 1.5 (critical modifier, or whatever it'll be). So, that small of a fraction of damage is fun, so long as the game artificially confines those foes to Grazes. And if you adjust the damage down so that a regular hit is 1 or 2, then they're dealing 1/20th of a point of damage per attack when they Graze. Does that make sense?

 

Again, if there was a disconnect in the context of our examples, I apologize. But, when I initially commented on the fraction being impractically small, I was referring to the application of it to Grazes in the P:E system of hit determination.

 

I agree regarding the situational modifiers (such as cover in SR:R). I love stuff like that, ^_^. And yes, just some form of the game telling me which factor actually affected my success/failure is quite nice.

Edited August 16, 2013 by Lephys

[J. Trudel]

That's a bit hard to explain he he, English not being my first language doesn't help either But well... the fraction is more of a way to plan the damage ranges and overall power of the players than an actual fraction. For example if you have around 100 hp, I expect someone of a similar power level to do around 6 - 8 damage when he hit you with a graze and maybe 9 - 12 with a standard hit. 

 

Not very important anyway he he  

[Lephys]

^ Ohhhhh. I understand you. See, the P:E Graze represents a fraction of the damage from a regular hit. So, if a hit does 10 damage normally, and a Graze happens to do 1/4th damage, the Graze would do 2.5 damage.

 

I realize that you were suggesting how much damage a Graze does out of your total health. I apologize for misunderstanding.

 

And, for what it's worth, understanding is never unimportant.

Edited August 17, 2013 by Lephys

[J. Trudel]

^ Ohhhhh. I understand you. See, the P:E Graze represents a fraction of the damage from a regular hit. So, if a hit does 10 damage normally, and a Graze happens to do 1/4th damage, the Graze would do 2.5 damage.

 

I realize that you were suggesting how much damage a Graze does out of your total health. I apologize for misunderstanding.

 

Like I said, english isn't my first language so I may as well not have explained myself in a very clear way.

[Lephys]

Like I said, english isn't my first language so I may as well not have explained myself in a very clear way.

For what it's worth, your English is plenty good enough that I wouldn't have guessed it wasn't your first language. . No worries. It was more of a coincidence between the P:E system's use of partial damage, and your separate use/reference to the partial damage of attacks. Not your fault,

[teknoman2]

the dnd system was the weak spot of all ie and nwn games imho. a system where everything is based on a dice roll with a pseudo-random algorithm deciding what the rolls are, is a system that can become frustrating for people who are not lucky

[J. Trudel]

the dnd system was the weak spot of all ie and nwn games imho. a system where everything is based on a dice roll with a pseudo-random algorithm deciding what the rolls are, is a system that can become frustrating for people who are not lucky

 

How do you think every cRPG handle their hit and damage ? I f you can find any another way than some ''randomness'' tell me okay.

[teknoman2]

there is randomness and there is complete randomness.

in arcanum, based on your skill with a weapon and some other conditions like light, line of sight etc, you were getting a % to hit, that could get to 100% if you trained persistently. at that point hiting was not random anymore, and only the damage was affected by the armor. so to balance the game enemies had more hp, tougher armors, and did more damage 

in dnd games, both the chance to hit and the damage is affected by a dice roll. to balance the difficulty, often the designers of the game give to the enemies an AC that requires from you (considering that they know that at that point you will be level x+-1) to get a roll of 10 or more, so almost all of the time you have an average of 50% chance to hit and about the same chance to get hit if you are a fighter, with higher chance to get hit and lower to hit if any other class. so in the end, from the first critter you kill to the final boss, it's just a coin toss where you pray to get heads that is a hit

[J. Trudel]

there is randomness and there is complete randomness.

in arcanum, based on your skill with a weapon and some other conditions like light, line of sight etc, you were getting a % to hit, that could get to 100% if you trained persistently. at that point hiting was not random anymore, and only the damage was affected by the armor. so to balance the game enemies had more hp, tougher armors, and did more damage 

in dnd games, both the chance to hit and the damage is affected by a dice roll. to balance the difficulty, often the designers of the game give to the enemies an AC that requires from you (considering that they know that at that point you will be level x+-1) to get a roll of 10 or more, so almost all of the time you have an average of 50% chance to hit and about the same chance to get hit if you are a fighter, with higher chance to get hit and lower to hit if any other class. so in the end, from the first critter you kill to the final boss, it's just a coin toss where you pray to get heads that is a hit

 

Your design idea has a major flaw, you can't design an unarmored character with low hp that is hard to hit yet can menage to survive on the battlefield because of cunning and exceptional evasion skills. This means that having a tougher armor and more hp is the only choice. This is somewhat way more limiting than having two factors that reduce the damage intake : Evasion, and Armor. It give players more freedom about designing their character and it add another layer to tactical gameplay. Heavy weaponry is best used against heavy armored because of low evasion, and lighter weaponry is best against lightly armored character who are harder to hit.